


firecrackers in the east

by fiftymillionstars



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiftymillionstars/pseuds/fiftymillionstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I like you," she says after a comfortable moment.</p><p>"I like you too," he says.</p><p>She smiles. He thinks of how much he likes her smile.</p><p>He thinks about a lot of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	firecrackers in the east

**Author's Note:**

> _fire-crackers in the east my car parked south_   
>  _your hands on my cheeks your shoulder in my mouth_   
>  _i was up against the wall on the west mezzanine_   
>  _we rattle this town we rattle this scene_
> 
> _O, Anna Sun!_   
>  _O, Anna Sun!_
> 
> _what do you know? this house is falling apart_   
>  _what can i say? this house is falling apart_   
>  _we got no money, but we got heart_   
>  _we're gonna rattle this ghost town_   
>  _this house is falling apart_
> 
> _([x](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDVW81bXo0s))_

Naïvely he thinks that nothing will be different the first time he falls asleep after his death and resurrection. Consciously he knows he's down a body, knows it every time he sees the tiny scar on the back of his left hand from one of his Search-And-Rescue stunts, but somehow he still expects to see Derse in his dreams. So it is without any hesitation that he crawls into bed some thirty-two hours after his revival.

When he opens his eyes he is immediately and completely disoriented. He is still in his room, but it is not _his_ room. A mixer stands on a cinder-block table. Bulbous puppets float idly in the air, accompanied by a smorgasbord of bladed weaponry and music CDs. He shakes his head, confused. Somewhere a clock is ticking faintly.

Swinging his body out of bed, he drifts through the room like an idle swimmer. Amidst the floating clutter is a single red thread. Almost instinctively he glances down at his hands, feeling apprehensive and foolish. The tiny scar winks up at him. Otherwise they are undecorated. Feeling a mixture of disappointment and relief, he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks about the room. It is so much like his own it brings a strange ache to his chest. Feeling out of place, he floats towards the door, brushing wires and records out of his way.

The room beyond is also his-but-not-his. The red string continues here, spooling out in the air to form complicated loops and twists. He reaches out to touch it. It feels like ordinary thread. He gives it a tug, observing how the ripple of movement travels.

He hears a giggle. Turning towards the sound, he sees a door, cracked open slightly. It is from this room that the red thread appears to issue. Curiosity piqued, he decides to investigate.

The sight that greets him sends an electric tingle of confusion and fear racing down his spine. A boy lies sprawled on the floor, upper body propped up by a pile of the plush puppets that rests against an unmade bed. Sitting half-atop him is a young girl, her skin as grey as ash. She's pulling the red thread out from the boy's eyes, watching it curl in the air and occasionally pausing in her work to bat at it delightedly. The boy makes no move to protest this treatment. Indeed, he doesn't move at all.

He must make some small noise, because the girl stops what she's doing, turning halfway about to get a look at him. Her eyes are the colour of bleached bones. Wildly, he thinks there is something terribly wrong with that. If she is a troll like he thinks, she should have eyes the colour of spun gold, with irises as black as night. Insead there is this nothing, this blank white expanse.

She tilts her head slightly, smile widening. He takes a cautious step back, his sense of danger screaming at him. This girl means trouble, despite her innocuous appearance.

In one fluid motion, the boy sits up and dives for something resting by his feet, setting the red string dancing. The girl squeaks in surprise, tumbling backwards off the pile of puppets. A blade comes hurtling towards him, propelled from the force of the boy's throw. He doesn't have time to move out of the way before it pierces his chest. His body feels fuzzy and warm before it dissolves in a shower of white light.

He wakes with a jolt, gasping, fingers scrabbling at his chest, clutching the blade's point of entry. There is nothing there. A ping from his messaging system: Jake is trying to reach him. His heart gives a twinge.

* * *

He is reluctant to sleep again, putting in fifty-three hours before the exhaustion finally claims him. He staggers back to his room, slipping off the orange gas mask and collapsing into a heap on his bed. He has enough presence of mind to bury himself under the covers before he is overtaken by sleep.

When he opens his eyes again he is back in the room that is no his, warm and cozy under card-suit sheets. He throws them off, agitated. Everything looks the same. The records and wires still float about the room, accompanied by the obscenely-grinning puppets. He floats idly through the mess, reading off group names from the CDs and recognising none of them.

The red thread is still here as well, and he gives an involuntary shudder when it brushes against his skin. He wonders what became of the boy. He wonders if he dares find out.

Curiosity drives him out of not-his room soon enough, back into the living room that also is-yet-isn't his. The door to the other room is still flung wide. He steps inside.

The boy is still there, as is the girl. She's moved the boy so he is lying on the bed, appearing as if asleep. But the boy's eyes are still open, and they gleam as white as hers. She keeps tugging and poking at him, occasionally worrying at him with her teeth. She seems quite frustrated with the boy's lack of response. Both ends of the red string dangle above her head. Each end is tied to a round black bead.

He closes the door behind him.

She looks up at the noise, a petulant expression on her alien features. "He won't wake up," she complains.

"He's dead," he says, feeling faintly sick.

" _Duh_ ," says the girl, as if the boy's death was a simple fact everyone should know. " _Still_ , though. I'm _bored_. And he won't wake up."

"You killed him," he says.

"I did _not_!" exclaims the girl, affronted. "I was just _helping_ him. He was already dying. There wasn't anything I could even do about it, except to try and speed it up a little by pulling the colour out of his eyes."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asks.

She flips away from her body, coming over to inspect him. She looks younger than she probably is, due to her petite stature. He pegs her at around twelve or thirteen. She wears a cat-hat in a very loud shade of blue, and an oversized olive trenchcoat that only serves to make her look even smaller. Atop her head sit two candy-corn horns, shaped ostensibly like cat ears, completing the look. Hell, she probably even has a tail, he thinks.

"What are _you_ talking about?" she asks, grinning a bit.

"I mean-" he starts, before stopping, frustrated. There was no reason to think he was ever going to get a straight answer out of her. "Where's Derse?" he asks, changing tacks.

"Oh," she says. "You're _new_ here."

He waits for her to elaborate. She stares at him.

"Well, you died, right?" she asks eventually.

He gives a jerky nod. "Yes. I was revived, though, so it shouldn't matter."

"Yeah, dummy, I can see that, she says, throwing a twisting gesture at his shadeless eyes and stomping out of the room. She carries the red string with her. He follows her, bemused, shutting the door behind him. Indeed she does have a tail, he sees. It's the same loud blue as her hat, and it twitches with her irritation.

"What I _meant_ was, because you died, you're in your dreamself body now, yeah? So there's nobody even _on_ Derse for you to wake up as."

"Oh," he says, feeling incredibly stupid.

"Yeah," she says, batting at the string. "You're really new."

He sits down on the couch, trying not to get too close to her. She plays with the string like a cat.

"So where are we, then?" he asks eventually.

"A dream bubble," she says. "They're confusing and I don't know much about them. I think they're kind of like... Memeowries, or something. Maybe."

It takes him a second to realise she mean 'memories'. "Oh, so this is _your_ memory? Of killing some poor sap?"

She lets out an aggravated sigh, rolling her eyes. If he looks closely, her irises stand out as faint silver discs. "No, _stupid_ , it's _his_ memeowry of his house. I'm here because I'm dead too. And I didn't kill him, I _told_ you I didn't."

"But he's dead," he says.

The girl lets out a little yell. "That's the point! When you die, your ghost gets stuck in the dream bubbles! Furefur! It's why I'm here! It's why he's here! It's sort of why you're here, too!"

He makes a calming motion with his hands. "Okay, okay, Jesus. Calm the fuck down already. Like you said, I'm new here."

"Watch your language, Nepeta," she mutters under her breath, making her voice sound gravelly and low.

"My name is Dirk, not Nepeta, and I can cuss whenever the fuck I want to," he says.

The girl lets out a little puff of air, curling up in upon herself. "You weren't supposed to hear that," she mumbles, looking away. After a pause, louder this time: "I'm Nepeta."

"Do you talk in third person or some shit?" he asks her.

She shakes her head. "Only when I'm roleplaying." (Ye gods, he thinks.) "It... It was what Equius used to say to me whenefur I cussed around him. I just miss him a lot," she adds, picking at the couch cushion.

He doesn't have anything to say to that. The faint ticking of the clock fills up the silence.

After a while, he asks what's been weighing on his mind. "Are you going to kill me too?"

"I already _told_ you, _asshole_ , I didn't kill him! —language, Nepeta."

"Then what were you doing to him?"

"I was _trying_ to make it easier fur him. The dying part."

He doesn't really have anything to say to that either.

"I don't know you," she says after a bit.

" _Duh_ ," he says, mimicking her tone from earlier.

"I _mean_ ," she says, exasperated, "You aren't one of the humans I know."

He grunts. "There are a lot of humans out there."

"That's not what I _mean_ ," she mutters breathily. He doesn't dignify that with a response.

After another pause: "If this is _his_ memory, why are _you_ still here?"

"Why are _you_ here?" she quips. Grudgingly he admits she has a point. "It's because I have nowhere else to go," she says gamely. "And, well— You're _interesting_. It's— It's really hard to meet up with someone else in the dream bubbles, so. I don't—" She pauses. He sneaks a glance at her. Her face has gone sad all of a sudden.

"I don't want to be alone," she says softly.

Unthinkingly, he slings an arm over her shoulder. "Yeah," he says. "Me either. —Besides, I could use someone to help me figure out all this dream bubble shit."

She buries her face in his shoulder. "Thanks," she says thickly.

"No problem."

They sit like that until he wakes.

* * *

"I figured it out."

Gravity's kicked in since he was last here, and he's rummaging through drawers and cabinets without fear of getting stabbed or hit, seeing what's in this place that is-yet-isn't his home. When she speaks, he pauses to turn and look at her.

"Figured what out?" he asks.

"Why I think you're so interesting."

"And why is that?"

"Because—" She wrinkles her nose at him. "Because we're the same."

He looks at her, trying to puzzle out what she means. The seconds tick by.

"—No, sorry, I have no idea what you mean."

She hops off her perch on the kitchen table, closing the distance between them in one fluid motion.

"We're the _same_ ," she repeats, placing her left hand over his heart. His clothing shifts to become something princely— something pink. A symbol of a heart is embroidered on the front of his shirt— tunic, rather. His pants are puffier than marshmallows. He's wearing tights and fucking ballet slippers.

The whole ensemble is terribly stupid.

Her outfit has also shifted to the same garish colour scheme, but the cut and style is far more practical. It looks like an outfit designed for stealth and quiet, if you changed the colours to something that wouldn't draw all eyes from miles around.

"So we share the same aspect," he says. "Cool." Mentally he shifts back into his regular clothing, with her following suit.

She shakes her head. "More than that." Her hand still rests over his heart. Inexplicably it begins to ache.

"You mean— oh." he says, realising. "You too?"

She nods, giving him a sad smile. "Yes."

"Tell me about him," he says.

Her face has a faraway look. "He's crabby. Really crabby. He's crabby and shouty and grumpy and a bit of a recluse. He's really insecure, too, and he doesn't like himself at all. He yells and cusses a lot. But he's a pawsome leader! He's kind and he cares about all of us so much. He would do anything to see us safe! And he's really strong, too, more than he gives himself credit for." She pauses. "He's purrfect, I guess," she says with a smile. "But he likes somepawdy else."

He hands her a tin of sardines he unearthed in his digging, thinking she'll like them. Cats like fish, after all. "Sucks for him," he says. "Sounds like he's missing out on a really great girl."

She graces him with a smile, turning the sardine tin over and over in her hands and tapping at it with nails like claws. "Thanks," she says, her smile twitching the slightest bit wider. He smiles back, wanting to muss her hair but barred by her hat.

"What about you?" she asks, still playing with the tin. Belatedly he wonders if she knows what he's given her, being a troll.

"Well," he says.

"Boy or girl?" she asks, making no move to open the sardines.

"Boy," he responds, a little surprised at the question. "He's— well. Put simply, he's an idiot."

She giggles.

"He doesn't understand a lot of things about social interaction, he's a complete dunderhead, he has no sense of fashion, he's really weak, he doesn't even realise how terrible he is at a lot of things, and he's got a terrible taste in films. He is also irritatingly cheerful."

"But," she says knowingly.

"Yeah. But." He sighs, a wry smile on his face. "He's cute, and when he gets really enthusiastic about something, the way his face lights up— well. And his laugh. And his smile. And— god."

She hands the sardine tin back to him solemnly. "He's missing out on a purrety great guy himself," she says.

He smiles crookedly, slipping the sardines into his pocket. "Thanks," he says, mussing her hair the best he can through the knit cap. She giggles and swats at his hand in protest, batting it away gently.

"I guess we have something else in common too," he says after a moment.

"What's that?" she asks.

"Terrible taste in crushes."

Her laugh fills the small space, tugging a smile from him. It feels good, he thinks, making her laugh like that.

"Yeah," she says, smiling at him fondly. "You're _so_ right."

"I'm _always_ right," he says, strutting about. Her laugh comes again, light and musical. She crinkles her nose when she laughs, he notices.

He notices a lot of things.

(When he wakes he finds he's sleeping on a tin of sardines. He turns the tin over and over in his hands, making no move to open it.)

* * *

He visits other dream bubbles, too, not just hers. He sees versions of himself and his friends from doomed timelines. He meets dead trolls. Once he even meets an alternate version of her, a surreal experience that stayed with him for days.

The dream bubbles are vast and limitless, yet night after night he finds himself by her side. He enjoys her company. She likes to roleplay and considers herself a professional shipper. She introduces him to the romantic art. He introduces her to anime. She teaches him how to stalk and hunt. He teaches her the sword.

They don't always stay in the house that is-yet-isn't his. Sometimes one of them will shift the scene to a memory of theirs. Through this way, she shows him the windswept scenery of Alternia and the bluffs and cliffs of the Land of Little Cats and Tea. He shows her the vast seas of post-takeover Earth and the glowing ghost towers of the Land of Tombs and Krypton.

But mostly they just have fun together. He is able to forget a good many things while asleep: all the woes that afflict him when he is awake slink away during the night, not to be seen until the next time he opens his eyes and slips on his shades. He can count on her to chase them away, blue tail swishing with glee.

* * *

"Good news," he says one night, grinning widely.

She perks up instantly, the tip of her tail twitching in curiosity. "What is it?"

His grin broadens. "I asked Jake out, and— he said yes!"

Her expression is like a punch to the gut. His grin vanishes instantly. She looks at him like he's betrayed her."

"You _promised_ ," she whispers. He can both hear and see tears forming. The lack of a cat pun is an additional worry.

"Nepeta, I-"

"You PROMISED!" she cries, wheeling about and darting away from his outstretched hand. She runs straight for the wall, much to his confusion. Then the wall isn't a wall any more: it's a dark tunnel leading god knows where.

He follows her.

It's a cave: Alternian, from the looks of it, bored out of dark grey stone that's cool to the touch. Flickering torches light his path. Gravel crunches underfoot.

Here and there lie the carcasses of great beasts, their blood pooling and steaming on the stone floor. He steps around the blood and viscera, a little disturbed at the sight. Further in, the fresh bodies are replaced by hanging carcasses and heaps of skins and furs. Blood is smeared on the cave walls in crude drawings. He sees little comics depicting tales of the hunt.

Soon the bodies disappear, replaced by an intricate pattern of squares. This seems like the most lived-in section of the cave. A table rests against a wall; a fake window is carved into the rock; a pile of clothing scraps and furs takes up a good portion of the path. A little ways down, a huge white cat, pale as snow, slumbers peacefully.

He takes a moment to examine the squares. In each there is a little drawing of two trolls, sometimes three, each with a card suit symbol between them. Shipping, he realises, with a little smile. It looks like she's covered just about ever possible combination of her and her friends, though some are circled and commentated on heavily, much more than others. He pauses at one of her and a troll with a broken horn, a little pink diamond hovering in the air between them. "DUH!" is written above it in bold black letters.

He doesn't think she's ever talked about this troll. He thinks that a bit odd, since seems to be so important to her.

He carries on.

She's curled up at the end of the cave, in front of a large shipping square, one of her and a grumpy-looking troll with nubby horns. Her shoulders shake slightly.

Oh, he thinks.

To the left the stone floor of the cave blends into tiled metal. Two bodies lie there, huddled close.

"I'm sorry," he says. She doesn't respond.

He walks towards the bodies, metal singing beneath his feet. They look to merely be asleep. The pool of blood each is laying in tells a different tale.

One body is hers, he sees. She is hatless, hair matted with blood. On closer inspection he can see a dent in her skull where she's been hit hard by some blunt object. Her head lies in a pool of olive. On her hands are clawed gloves, the fine blades cracked and broken.

Next to her is the one-horned troll from before, face up, eyes bulging, mouth contorted into a frightening grin. Half his teeth are broken or missing, and his face is an unpleasant shade of blue. The string from a broken bow is twined tight around his neck. An arrow is shot straight through his knee. The pool of blood his leg has issued is almost the same colour as her hat and tail.

Her body is oriented towards this dreadful apparition, one hand reaching out for him.

"That's Equius," comes a voice from beside him. He jumps a little, startled.

"He's my meowrail," she says sadly, olive tears still on her cheeks. "We were supposed to be together furefur."

She bends down, dipping a finger into the pool of her blood, tracing an olive diamond onto Equius's cheek. With the other hand she repeats the gesture, adorning her own corpse with a blue cheek-diamond.

"Together furefur," she chokes, hunched over the bodies.

He bends down and picks her up. She's light as a bird, and she buries herself in his chest. He walks back out of the cave, rubbing her back to try and calm her. The cave vanishes as soon as he exits it, replaced by dirty apartment wall. He is greeted by the sound of a ticking clock, sounding quite near.

He splays out on the couch, draping her on top of him. She makes fists in the fabric of his shirt, clutching tight.

They rest like that until he wakes.

* * *

"How long have I known you?" she asks.

"Five months," he says.

She seems satisfied. Then—

"How long is a month?"

He can't help the snort that escapes him. "A month is four weeks, roughly, and a week is made of seven days, which are made up of twenty-four hours, which—"

She presses a hand to his mouth. "I know what a day is, stupid," she huffs.

"Oh really?" he asks teasingly.

"Yes really," she insists.

He grins, giving the palm of her hand a little kiss. She squeaks, withdrawing the appendage. That pulls a laugh from him, much to her chagrin.

"You're _weird_ ," she announces.

He shrugs. "Cultural differences," he says with a smirk.

She wrinkles her nose at him. "Bluh bluh."

The loud ticking of a clock fills up the silence.

The very tips of their fingers brush.

"I like you," she says after a comfortable moment.

"I like you too," he says.

She smiles. He thinks of how much he likes her smile.

He thinks about a lot of things.

* * *

The first thing he notices when he opens his eyes is that the gravity seems to have stopped working. Shitty weaponry and sexual puppets once again leisurely drift through the air, a testament to the first two times he was here. The ticking of a clock sounds loud and clear in his ears.

He slings himself out of the card-suit bed, trying not to impale himself on a Sord as he drifts towards the door. That same red thread once again twists and tangles through the air.

She's sitting on the couch, curled up in upon herself. He drops down beside her, smacking a puppet out of the way.

She leans against him without a word. He wraps an arm around her shoulders. He can feel a soothing vibration start in her chest. Purring, he realises. She's purring.

He reaches up and plucks at the red string, wrapping a section of it around his pinky. He takes one of her hands and does the same.

She looks at him, uncomprehending.

"I don't understand," she says.

He gives her a sad smile. "Cultural differences," he says.

Her lips gently press to his cheek. He returns the gesture in kind.

Their fingers interlace.

They rest like that until he wakes.

* * *

One night she isn't there.

He calls her name again and again. "Nepeta," he calls. "Nepeta."

She doesn't respond. She isn't anywhere.

Finally, at a loss, he turns to the last closed door, the one that's stayed closed since they met. It's cracked open. The red string leads inside.

He opens the door.

The boy is there, perched on the puppet pile, Aviators obscuring blank white eyes. He waves at Dirk.

"Sup," the boy says.

"Where's Nepeta?" Dirk says.

The boy pats the jutting rump of a puppet on the pile next to him. "I'm Dave," he says.

"Dirk. Have you seen Nepeta?"

Dave shrugs. "Nah. I just came to my senses."

"It's been six months, dude."

"Really? Shit."

Dirk slumps on the pile next to Dave. "So you know her, then?"

"Yeah," says Dave. "We hung out when I was still ticking. Dunno why. We never talked when she was alive." He pauses, thinking. "I think she was lonely. Vantas said she was always hanging with Sweaty Horse Dude before she kicked it, so I guess she didn't take well to solitude."

I don't want to be alone, she had said.

"I mean, she was pretty cool, so it wasn't like I was _bothered_ by it. We drew comics together, sometimes. She liked to chew on things, especially red ones." He shows Dirk the sleeve of his shirt, ragged and punctured by little troll teeth. "I guess it reminded her of TZ. She talked about TZ and Vantas a lot. Not a lot about Sweat Horse Dude, for all he was supposed to be important to her. It was kind of funny."

"Equius," says Dirk, remembering. "Sweaty Horse Dude's name is Equius."

Dave makes a noise of assent.

"What was she doing to you?" Dirk asks after a minute. "When we first met?"

Dave shifts a little. "I was asleep," he begins. "So I was here. And- shit, I dunno, it was probably Jack. Something offed me. Not right away, though. Bastard left me to bleed out."

Dave sighs. "She told me about her death once. Some psycho clown dude offed her pale boyfriend in front of her, so she tried to off psycho clown dude. Got clubbed in the head. It was a slow death, from what she said. Must've hurt like a bitch."

Dirk's heart clenches.

"So when I started thrashing about, I guess she didn't want me to have a slow death like hers. She was trying to speed it up, though fuck if I know what the hell she was actually doing."

"Oh," says Dirk.

"Yeah," says Dave.

There is a pause.

"Why—" Dirk starts. "When you saw me, you woke me up. Why did you bother—"

Dave looks at his feet. "I thought you were my Bro," he says quietly. "I didn't want him to have to see me go through— whatever that was."

"Why?" asks Dirk.

"Because— because— the game chose _us_ , fucking bastard game, but it chose _us_ , and we went through a whole lot of shit and got used to going through a whole lot of shit. But Bro— the game didn't choose him, any more than it chose Rose's mom or John's dad, so he didn't have to go through all that shit. He— he probably didn't go through _any_ shit, actually, before he— before Jack— before—"

Dave pauses, swiping roughly at his eyes.

"Before he died," he says, voice catching slightly. "And— I didn't want him to have to see that. To see how badly I fucked up." Dave sighs. "I fucked up a lot," he says.

"We all fuck up a lot," Dirk says.

Dave nods.

The ticking returns to fill the silence, almost deafening in its volume. Underneath he can almost hear a faint electric crackling roar.

"Do you know where Nepeta is?" Dirk asks, almost desperate.

"Word of advice," sighs Dave. "Don't come back tomorrow."

* * *

He tries. Oh, how he tries.

Later he'll understand. He'll learn about an evil Lord of Time, about a desperate search for an alien ghost, about shattered space-time. He learns about double death.

But at the time he is confused and hurt. He can't find her. He can't find her bubble.

Sometimes it feels like he can't find himself.

He'll get over it, in time. But for now—

But for now, he searches.


End file.
